3.8 Connect: Smart thermostat demo

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Connect. My name's Adrian, and I'm bringing along Sarah Pelosi from our Wi-Fi applications team to talk about a brand new TI design that she's been working on that integrates several wireless technologies to build a smart thermostat. So thanks for joining us.
Yeah. Of course.
Awesome. So this looks like a very complete system, and I'm really excited to dive into some of the capabilities you've added to this particular design. Do you care maybe walking through a high level block diagram of what's going on?
Sure. So we have our CC3220 is the main component of our design.
OK.
And then we have the sensors BoosterPack. We also have the CC2640R2.
Awesome.
And we have Kentec QVGA display. So the 3220 handles the Wi-Fi and the main application. The sensors BoosterPack, we're using for temperature, humidity, and pressure. The 2640R2, we're using for BLE provisioning of the access point. And the Kentec QVGA up here is showing the display and the resistive touch.
Very cool. And I see you've taken kind of a modular approach here. So you've got, I guess, your primary application processor, the 3220. That's a Wi-Fi plus ARM MCU, and it's handling the majority of the application.
Right.
Very cool. And then, I guess, here is also the BLE part that you're using specifically for BLE provisioning.
Mm-hmm.
Awesome. And from a software perspective, I guess, what did it take to build this solution?
So we started with really a modular approach for this application. We wanted to show what the customer's doing with a complete application. So this does MPPT, OTA, all styles of provisioning, sensors reading, resistive touch. We really wanted to show the breadth of what a customer could do putting it all together.
And we really tried to do a drag and drop approach, so you can do all of the network stuff is handled on one thread. All the OT on another. ITT on another.
OK. Cool. So this is using our TI-RTOS in this particular?
Yes, TI drivers and TI-RTOS.
Awesome. And I noticed a sensors BoosterPack here as well. So I guess to monitor the environment, we're using some sensors. Are these from TI?
I think for one of the sensors we're using the Bosch sensor on the sensors BoosterPack for the pressure, humidity, and temperature. We're also using this Grove BoosterPack with the sensors plugged in for the air quality as an analog sensor. We have a relay for the fan to show and A track system. And we have a PIR sensor for movement to turn the screen on and off and for power policy.
OK. Cool. And then we're using the Kentec LCD display. And is this using just a resistive touchscreen?
Yeah. This one is just using resistive touch.
Cool.
So we can change the temperature on the screen, or we can change it on the GUI that's connected up to the cloud.
Oh, wow. That was really fast. And I guess that's a benefit of MPPT?
Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
Cool. And in this particular instance, with the Wi-Fi connectivity, are we leveraging any cloud services or partners?
Yeah. So right now, this demo is running on IBM Watson, but we have a number of IoT plugins that you could also take this application and use it with Azure. You could use it with AWS with home kit, or with IBM Watson or any MPPT client.
Love it. And in this instance, I guess, we have a graphical user interface. And this looks like GUI Composer. I know we've had other demos using that interface as well. What are you able to control over the GUI?
So the control from the GUI right now is just changing the temperature. And we can see that reflected over here. We can turn the temperature on and turn the heat on.
We also can start the OTA process, so over the air download. So if you have a new version, this would allow the customer to go find it and demo how they would show over the air download for the Wi-Fi.
Cool. Awesome. It was kind of subtle, but I guess, the screen turns red whenever it's in, I guess, heating mode.
Yeah. You can also hear the relay turn on and off as the fan for the air conditioning or heating system.
Awesome. So if you set the set temp lower than, I guess, the red sensor reading coming from some of these sensors, it'll reflect that it's cooling the environment.
Yep.
Love it. Very cool. And in this particular instance, because it's cloud connected, you have the ability of monitoring your temperature anywhere in the world and actually interacting with your thermostat outside of your home?
Yeah, absolutely. Because of that, we're also using some security measures. Chalk up to the cloud, obviously. We have secure MPPT. We also have additional security for the secure file system on the flash, because this is all connected up to your probably your home gateway, your home network, and other items in your home could be connected to this. So you want to make sure there are no vulnerabilities.
Yeah. Security is important. And there's a lot going on here. I guess, is there anything in particular that we're taking advantage of to be able to jam pack all these capabilities into this application?
So specifically on this device, we're using the 3220SF, which has a one megabyte integrated executable flash. And this really allows us to do everything at once, and do a lot of the processing of the sensors and the data that's getting sent up to the cloud within the application MCU.
Very cool. I love the HVAC application. But I think what really excites me is that a lot of these building blocks that you've enabled here could be used in other applications spaces as well. I guess, one that comes to mind is maybe like a security panel. We could use the same touchscreen, the same Wi-Fi connectivity, the same sensors in some cases. Are you seeing a little bit of that opportunity to use some of these for other applications as well?
Absolutely. So a lot of what we implemented here for the modular approach, we also did actually on Ben Moore's Wi-Fi door lock. And a lot of these components, because we're using the SimpleLink SDK, which is portable across multiple platforms, you could reuse some of this for the MSP432 with the CC3120 device, which is also Wi-Fi, or even the MSP432E4, which uses ethernet.
Cool. So with the SimpleLink SDK, we actually have code portability between our Wi-Fi products as well as our ethernet based products.
Mm-hmm.
Love it. Very cool. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Sarah. Really cool TI design. I know customers are probably going to want to get started with a solution very similar to this one. Is there a particular place they can go to get started?
Yeah. So this TI design is TIDM-1020.
Cool. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Sarah, for hanging out. TIDM-1020, search for it on TI.com.
Thank you very much for watching another episode of Connect. If you have any feedback or ideas for new topics, feel free to tweet at us @SensorToCloud. And thank you so much for watching. We'll catch you again next week.